Volunteer Department is Going Green

Besides our regular programming Met Council's volunteers also take on special initiatives. Our big one right now is to create opportunities for volunteers to Green Met Council.

We have started with some easy stuff. Volunteers have gone around to our low income seniors and given out energy efficient bulbs. This is not only good for the environment, but also saves low income seniors money. Not bad for a few hours of volunteer work. A big thanks to Home Depot for providing us with a grant to make this happen.

Volunteers have also helped to create gardens for seniors. One of the gardens even has an eggplant growing in it! The next step after creating the gardens is to work with our seniors to make windowsill herb gardens. We will be making these out of soda bottles and planting herbs that our seniors will then use to cook with. This is in thanks to a UJA Social Action Month Grant and a partnership with Hazon. We are still looking for volunteers for this project, if you are interested please contact volunteer@metcouncil.org.

In addition to helping our clients become green we are also making our selves greener. We have bought an Ipad to help cut our paper use. We will soon begin to have our sign in sheets on the Ipad, additionally all forms needing to be signed will be on the Ipad. This will eliminate a tremendous amount of paper use. We are also looking into buying real dishes for a few of our senior lunch programs. This will help eliminate a lot of waste.

As this initiative grows we hope to take on bigger projects like harvesting rain water and composting. Also doing tenant education and helping to create green habits.

This effort is on going and we can always use the help of our volunteers. We can save our planet one small step at a time.

If you want to make your life greener, here are some easy tips:

1. Plug your electronics into a power strip and turn the power strip off when you are not home. Even though the power of your electronic is off, it is still drawing power. If you turn off the power strip it cuts all electricity which in turn cuts your electricity bill.

2. Wash your clothing in cold water. They will still be clean and save electricity.

3. Make sure you properly section out your recycling. Recycling saves natural resources.

One last thank you to The Jewish Greening Fellowship for not only providing funds, but for providing the training, tools and resources to allow us to properly do our part and reduce Met Council's carbon footprint.